Duel Portal Metagame Thread [January 2015]

[VampireofDarkness]

Since we all wanted, this will be the main thread for the Duel Portal Metagame. Here we discuss things such as the current Decks themselves, effective Side Deck cards, and setting the standard for Decks themselves. It should be noted accordingly before this thread begins that we aren't looking to burn Decks with fire, and we should take into consideration what the Deck does and how much does it rely on a specific gimmick the Deck has. If a problem is within a certain card, that would be the card to limit or nerf, not just making the Deck as playable as Ice Barriers. With that out of the way, let's discuss the DP Metagame:

From my observations of the tournament, it seems we have a fairly divided Tier 1 and 2. While the Tier 2 has the ability to take the Tier 1 to Game 3, it seems to be fairly straightforward who is who. While the power level of Tier 1 could be argued to be similar to TCG, the era of the blowout and the first Pendulum Deck is replaced by the era of the beatstick and the fight for the longest lasting boss monster(s). While single destruction is still not quite as good, mass destruction can prove to be devastating when timed right. Here's a very quick breakdown of the main Decks running about:

Tier 1:

[Spoiler Mirage Guardians]
With 2700-2800 ATK floaters and synergy with cards such as the D Rulers and REDM, classic Dragon Beatdown is back with a bang!
[/spoiler]

[Spoiler Dark Counterpart Rituals]
While the blowout OTK based Game 1 of the Deck has been completely eliminated as a result of recent nerfs, Dark Counterparts still hang on to their core elements. The ability to maindeck Traps is traded for combos that end with ruthless Rank 4s backed up by boss monsters that banish from the Graveyard, turning a few pushed-aside tech cards into quite possibly the Lightsworn of DP.
[/spoiler]

[Spoiler Sky Conquerors]
While no longer running as Winged Rhynos: The Deck, Sky Conquerors still benefit from having huge beatstick potential and the ability to benefit off of using and fusing with the original "Polymerization". With running the monster to beat this format and the ability to splash in staples such as BLS, Tour Guide, and Vanity's Emptiness, the Deck is set to shine as the Shaddolls of DP.
[/spoiler]

[Spoiler Railroad Machines]
While having nothing to do with Anna's Rank 10 fest, these Trains combo off of Synchros and Xyz to specialize in brute force aboard the field. Recursion and burn damage is another theme of part of the Deck, with the recursion working against effect destruction and banishing.
[/spoiler]

[Spoiler Darzorcs]
While I myself consider these to be one of the fairest contenders of the Tier 1 Decks, and would argue it to be 1.5, the Deck shows strength in its matchups against the stronger of Decks. Dodging several common side cards, running the more powerful of others, and being able to catch the opponent off guard via its various backrow choices, Bakura's RPG boss and destroyer of worlds has fancied a rather solid role.
[/spoiler]

Tier 2:

[Spoiler IceBurn]
While having a few nerfs that quite possibly dragged the Deck down, IceBurn benefits strongly from still having a large amount of stun power while slowly being able to burn and destroy fields. Quite possibly running as the HAT of DP, the act of targeting a monster has yet to be seen put as much work put into 1 single Deck.
[/spoiler]

[Spoiler Crags]
Remember that monster you just couldn't destroy no matter how many ways you had to remove it? Welcome to Crags. While unable to withstand excessive dominance, Crags can maintain 1 or 2 monsters with several ways to protect them which combined with other generic Rock support and bosses, such as Gaia Plate the Earth Giant, overtime can devour heavy amounts of resources.
[/spoiler]

[Spoiler Wings]
While standing on the lower side from losing to effect destruction and inherent Special Summon devastation, Wings have the potential to make strong defensive plays and also double up on offensive plays that come from stacking upon one another and self bouncing. Similar to Crags, Wings also benefit from various Machine support (Most notably Limiter Removal), and being left unchecked is the last thing you'll consider.
[/spoiler]

With that said, a quick overview of some useful Side Deck cards and Extra Deck staples:

[Spoiler Side Deck/Extra Deck Staples]
Hachi the Magical Crow - Assuming you know what you're up against, you can say bye to Inherent Special Summons. Decks like Dark Counterparts or Trains that go into Synchros and Xyz a lot are hurt by this card a bit, and Wings just.....
Devourer of Unfortunate Souls - Graveyard reliance is always a good thing to take advantage of against an opponent. Devourer does that, while also gaining slight ATK boosts. While not as effective at taking out Mirage Guardians (In fact, it benefits them), Dark Counterparts and Crags will promptly be sad to see this card.
Abyss Dweller - This card covers what Devourer can't pretty much. However, Dark Counterparts mostly care about having a Graveyard, not activating effects IN the Graveyard, and Crags will survive this, so run both if you can
Book of Eclipse - This card is an interesting one because its merit is the least diverse out of these. Flipping monsters face down will only be good if you have the ability to eliminate them so your opponent doesn't draw or if you are disrupting some sort of big play. Sky Conquerors and Wings suffer the most from this card, while against Dark Counterparts it works, but only if you get it early game.
Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell - This card demolishes several Decks if you can hit the right card. Not being able to use that Fusion/Ritual/Field/Important Spell Card for the entire Duel can.... End it. Dark Counterparts, Crags and Sky Conquerors all have the potential fold to this card
Deck Devastation Virus/Eradicator Epidemic Virus - Never has Konami released Traps nearly with the long term effects being as painful as that of the Virus cards. With 3 of the Top 5 being able to run these cards (With 1 even siding Eradicator during the tournament itself), I felt it had to include these devastating 3 Turn shutdown to low ATK monsters and either Spells or Traps respectively. Wings and Sky Conquerors will bow down to Deck Devastation, while Crags and especially Dark Counterparts will fold to Eradicator Epidemic
Imperial Iron Wall - While banishing isn't ENTIRELY that relevant this game, there are some Decks that can get hurt by this. Sky Conquerors lose out on the best effect of their boss monster, Dark Counterparts can't summon their biggest bosses nor gain the advantages from banishing the lower level monsters, and Mirage Guardians.......
Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror - While its counterpart is quite useless, this mirror packs a punch where 3 of the 5 Tier 1 Decks run mostly DARKs. Dark Counterparts, Sky Conquerors, and Darzorcs will hurt the most from this.
Soul Drain - See Abyss Dweller
Vanity's Emptiness - This card in general is just outright offensive. Some Decks just fold by the activation. Dark Counterparts, Wings, and Mirage Guardians all suffer the greatest from this card.
[/spoiler]

And for the last thing to discuss:

 

[Spoiler Setting The Standard]
As with any Metagame in general, there needs to be a standard power level to go by. While people like myself prefer a faster Decks, others take it slow and thus at times get outpaced. It was suggested at one point (Despite an unfortunate decrease in interest) that we could split it into 2 formats: Casual and Advanced Format. However, the problem is where we set each format. It was suggested at one point that for Casual, the standard would be similar to Fire Fist/Geargia Format, which in my opinion would be the most ideal situation without completely wrecking certain Decks. However, this still is left out in the wind if the debate is needed. The Advanced Format, however, is one to be discussed. While it is largely agreed by all of us that we don't want Qli 2.0, the Deck we should take notes on in terms of balance is something to really consider. A few things have been thrown out there, but I'll leave that open for discussion amongst those interested in such format.
[/spoiler]

[Darj]

Well, as I have suggested before in the DP chat, I think we should first fix the bigger issues of our decks and attempt to balance then, such as nerfing cards or fixing overwhelming interactions. Then we can adjust the power level (increase or reduce it) again if necessary.

 

After the fixes, I suspect we will end with a power level similar to TCG pre-Qlip Shaddolls, HATs, etc. Which is not exactly bad but personally I would prefer to further go 1 or 2 power levels down. Yes, I get that we can't really measure "power level" with numbers and we don't have a scale for reference, but I think you can get an idea of what I mean.

[VampireofDarkness]

Well, as I have suggested before in the DP chat, I think we should first fix the bigger issues of our decks and attempt to balance then, such as nerfing cards or fixing overwhelming interactions. Then we can adjust the power level (increase or reduce it) again if necessary.

After the fixes, I suspect we will end with a power level similar to TCG pre-Qlip Shaddolls, HATs, etc. Which is not exactly bad but personally I would prefer to further go 1 or 2 power levels down. Yes, I get that we can't really measure "power level" with numbers and we don't have a scale for reference, but I think you can get an idea of what I mean.

Personally, I think PRIO or DoL Format is the way to go, with Pre-Qlip Shaddolls being the highest I would want to go. Though you are right, we need to tone down the biggest problems first, then see how they interact with each other and go from there

[Self-Destruct Button]

I think I already talked quite a bit about how to balance the SQ's, and we got to a conclusion, so consider that fixed. They should still be in Tier 1, though a bit lower. I honestly don't care that much how high or low we go with the Power Level, I just want good duels and a lot of fun. Hope we'll have quite a bit of activity here. :'3

[VampireofDarkness]

I think I already talked quite a bit about how to balance the SQ's, and we got to a conclusion, so consider that fixed. They should still be in Tier 1, though a bit lower. I honestly don't care that much how high or low we go with the Power Level, I just want good duels and a lot of fun. Hope we'll have quite a bit of activity here. :'3

Pretty much where I am at this point. I mean, we need a standard, that's why I give my quota on all of this, but otherwise we might as well enjoy ourselves some good duels! We can test and decide everything, but again we oughta just enjoy it and see where it goes from there

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Now that the DP tournament's concluded with the matches, were there any cards in particular that you found to be overbearing during the duels?

Before we start deciding on whether to have our own meta, we need to figure out what will be the key cards.

 

I know Grandmaster listed a few of them, but note that it's only what's been made public to you all.

 

 

Noel's asked for me to move her Deck's thread to this section, and I shall be doing mine later on.

Only one who's fought it is Have a Lovely Day, though that was before modifications.

[Love of Ghibli]

Now that the DP tournament's concluded with the matches, were there any cards in particular that you found to be overbearing during the duels?

Before we start deciding on whether to have our own meta, we need to figure out what will be the key cards.

 

I know Grandmaster listed a few of them, but note that it's only what's been made public to you all.

 

 

Noel's asked for me to move her Deck's thread to this section, and I shall be doing mine later on.

Only one who's fought it is Have a Lovely Day, though that was before modifications.

From a design stand point I had a couple problems with my opponents cards but I feel all the sets should get their on thread and discussions should be given that way.

Also the psychic dragon thing that I faced... it was fun facing it. But it wasn't truly a fair fight. If its been nerfed though I'm intrigued to what they look like now.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

In terms of changes, probably the most I did was add OPT clauses on them, so they can't spam multiple copies of themselves. (I forgot if that was the case in our duel)

Of course, I did put in a card to deal with backrow and other stuff; might have to tone that one down, considering it's negation-ish.

 

Out of fairness, you could probably make two different Decks, based on the members.

I'll let you all decide.

[VampireofDarkness]

From a design stand point I had a couple problems with my opponents cards but I feel all the sets should get their on thread and discussions should be given that way.

Also the psychic dragon thing that I faced... it was fun facing it. But it wasn't truly a fair fight. If its been nerfed though I'm intrigued to what they look like now.

Agreed! Voltex actually suggested we post our Decklists in a thread and be able to discuss them that way and/or see what actually is legit not only in theory but what is actually good against the Deck and what isn't. For example, although Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell DESTROYS my Deck, Voltex only runs 1 copy of his Ritual Spell apparently, so sometimes it can be misleading when you see "It's a Ritual Deck" and not "It's Darzorcs". That's what a Deck profile can do for ya, in addition to seeing what made the Deck do well/not so well/what's really the problem card

As for problem cards, the only one off the top of my head I can think of is Bloodscythe of the Sky Conquerors, but because I may have the only Deck runs 0 backrow and 0 Non-Ritual related Spell Cards, I may be bias in saying that I literally had to run a specific card that wasn't that great in my Deck JUST to have an out to Bloodscythe since both games I faced it I severely lost to it. Adding in Absol will definitely make it a LOT easier for me to get over in the future, however, so I may want to test when that becomes a choice

[Darj]

We could post our decklist in the Tournament thread and discuss them over there instead of making a new thread.

[ToaCody]

Well I don't think I could describe my deck much better than that.

[Maeriberii Haan]

One of the thing that I'm interested in bringing up about to the spotlight is the spellcard Reinforcements from the EVO set.

 

It's...practically RotA with a discard that can be used by a wider spectrum of deck, even if it has the Duality clause. I'm bringing this up since it could definitely be utilized really effectively by many decks, even with its discard cost, since after all, search power is search power.

 

In decks that can gain advantage easily enough (which seems to be most deck now), and doesn't special summon much, including this as a staple seems to be pretty probable.

 

Posting it here since idk, it seems to fit better here since its usage is already obvious enough, and I'd like to see whether the relevant decks would appreciate it.

[VampireofDarkness]

One of the thing that I'm interested in bringing up about to the spotlight is the spellcard Reinforcements from the EVO set.

It's...practically RotA with a discard that can be used by a wider spectrum of deck, even if it has the Duality clause. I'm bringing this up since it could definitely be utilized really effectively by many decks, even with its discard cost, since after all, search power is search power.

In decks that can gain advantage easily enough (which seems to be most deck now), and doesn't special summon much, including this as a staple seems to be pretty probable.

Posting it here since idk, it seems to fit better here since its usage is already obvious enough, and I'd like to see whether the relevant decks would appreciate it.

You should keep this as a seperate card discussion. As for my own thoughts, the no SS clause tends to kill a lot of Decks from utilizing things. Perhaps Darzorcs could use it to search Necromancer, and Crags definitely would love it, but that's all I can think of really. I myself couldn't, as I really need the Special Summon for the situations it would be applicable in

[Darj]

One of the thing that I'm interested in bringing up about to the spotlight is the spellcard Reinforcements from the EVO set.

 

It's...practically RotA with a discard that can be used by a wider spectrum of deck, even if it has the Duality clause. I'm bringing this up since it could definitely be utilized really effectively by many decks, even with its discard cost, since after all, search power is search power.

 

In decks that can gain advantage easily enough (which seems to be most deck now), and doesn't special summon much, including this as a staple seems to be pretty probable.

 

Posting it here since idk, it seems to fit better here since its usage is already obvious enough, and I'd like to see whether the relevant decks would appreciate it.

 

Yes, there are a couple of questionable cards uploaded to DP that have yet to be discovered, tested or abused. I have yet to test this but it does look like a problem card. Then again, I normally avoid EVO cards because they were designed for a CCG that doesn't have access to TCG stuff, which means they most likely don't have things like ROTA, and have cards like this one to compensate them.

Anyways, I think you could have brought this card up in its own thread here in the DP subsection.

[Maeriberii Haan]

I guess. And indeed, there's some crazy things buried deep beneath the uploaded cards. Rescue from the Different Dimension came to mind.

Shifting the topic, if we can get proper crosstesting going more, the tier list would have more legibility in it, I believe. We should also put more detailed info on each decks after we did the tests.

Main thing I'm concerned with, what looks like to be not really effective, could very well become crazy if someone with another mindset tries it out.

There's also possibility that the decks so far were not optimal yet in their builds, which would skew their actual power level.

[Darj]

Shifting the topic, if we can get proper crosstesting going more, the tier list would have more legibility in it, I believe. We should also put more detailed info on each decks after we did the tests.

Main thing I'm concerned with, what looks like to be not really effective, could very well become crazy if someone with another mindset tries it out.

There's also possibility that the decks so far were not optimal yet in their builds, which would skew their actual power level.

 

I agree. I guess we could include the deck's playstyles in their respective Archetype threads, and also in the Tourney thread to spark discussion.

As for the latter, I believe it is something that actually happened during the tourney: I noticed a couple of decks that were subpar because either ran bad/situational cards, bad ratios (e.g. not maxing the number of their best archetype cards) or possibly going full CCG and avoiding TCG cards for some reason.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

That's probably an option.

Keep in mind that all cards on DP were fair game, whether or not they are existing things or member creations.

 

Looking at the Decklists you all PMed, some of you combined the two; others went full-on custom cards.

 

 

Again, some of you guys have asked me to move your Deck/Archetypes into this section, which has been done.

But listing potential playstyles should be helpful in understanding what happens.

 

 

In ToaCody's and my case, both of us do have a lot of members (in my case, you can probably design 2 different styles off of it, but it should work on a similar pattern). In Cody's one, probably (or most are just filler).

[ToaCody]

In ToaCody's and my case, both of us do have a lot of members (in my case, you can probably design 2 different styles off of it, but it should work on a similar pattern). In Cody's one, probably (or most are just filler).

You are right about most of my cards technically being filler. As I brought up on my thread, it came about from personal habit of rolling with certain things when I start them (in this case once I came up with a few cards in a row I just kept churning out more). I have no plans on adding any more, instead am looking into editing what I have come up with so that it could all be useable in some fashion. (Another habit of mine, I don't like to "throw out" ideas unless there's absolutely no way they can be saved.)

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Mine was somewhat of a filler thing upon its inception with certain cards; with the new updates, it can essentially function as two separate styles depending on what you need.

Then again, I probably made too many cards to try filling the holes inside the Deck, but a few are necessary to help things run nicely.

 

(Most of them are essential to keeping things running; rest are either Side Deck or really not as useful as I had intended).

 

On a related note to the topic, probably might be Tier 1-ish. (That's probably what happens when I had it designed for a fan fic character in an alternative world)

[Avaren]

I guess. And indeed, there's some crazy things buried deep beneath the uploaded cards. Rescue from the Different Dimension came to mind.

Shifting the topic, if we can get proper crosstesting going more, the tier list would have more legibility in it, I believe. We should also put more detailed info on each decks after we did the tests.

Main thing I'm concerned with, what looks like to be not really effective, could very well become crazy if someone with another mindset tries it out.

There's also possibility that the decks so far were not optimal yet in their builds, which would skew their actual power level.

 

One of the reasons I withdrew from the tournament was that the deck-build I had was old, I had hastily entered. Cards had been updated since the deck was put together and certain things (like having 3 lvl 1's) was too excessive (eg that lvl 1 was a REALLY bad draw). If you look hard enough, the deck has only a few minor edits from a decklist I was using a full year ago.

 

You are right about most of my cards technically being filler. As I brought up on my thread, it came about from personal habit of rolling with certain things when I start them (in this case once I came up with a few cards in a row I just kept churning out more). I have no plans on adding any more, instead am looking into editing what I have come up with so that it could all be useable in some fashion. (Another habit of mine, I don't like to "throw out" ideas unless there's absolutely no way they can be saved.)

 

I don't like throwing out cards either and I will generally make a card in-line with the set then try to find tcg cards that would fit.